Jeff Bezos remains committed to Washington Post amid brutal layoffs, top editor says - CNN

Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos remains committed to the publication, its top editor told CNN in an interview Wednesday, hours after the Post laid off hundreds of employees. “He wants the Post to be a bigger, relevant, thriving institution,” executive editor Matt Murray said. Many Post journalists doubt that, however, arguing that the institution can’t cut its way to growth. Roughly one in three employees were laid off on Wednesday, including more than 300 in the newsroom, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The severe cutbacks further intensified scrutiny of Bezos, leaving many Post journalists wondering whether he’ll sell the publication, and leading some to hope that he will. “If Jeff Bezos is no longer willing to invest in the mission that has defined this paper for generations and serve the millions who depend on Post journalism, then The Post deserves a steward that will,” The Post Guild said in a statement. Bezos has not commented on his current vision for the Post, but he has privately pushed management to reverse the newspaper’s annual losses, return it to profitability and find a sustainable path forward. In a phone interview, Murray was reluctant to discuss his conversations with Bezos in detail and declined to specify when he last spoke with the owner. But he called Wednesday a “reset” day and said Bezos supports “reinvention.” “I can say from my perspective, Jeff is nothing but supportive of getting the house in order and being positioned for growth,” Murray said. “And he is perfect, from my perspective as head of the news department, about being an owner that does not interfere in the news mandate; doesn’t dictate anything that we do; doesn’t respond to stories; doesn’t drive coverage; and understands the needs and imperatives of what we’re trying to do with our journalism. That’s what I like in an owner.” ‘Save the Post’ Post employees — some of whom recently wrote letters to Bezos in an ill-fated bid to save their jobs — have been organizing online around the hashtag #SaveThePost. Murray pointed out that “the first time I ever heard the words ‘save the Post,’ they were uttered by Jeff Bezos.” That moment came at the end of 2024, when Bezos spoke on stage at The New York Times’ DealBook conference and said, “We saved The Washington Post once, and we’re going to save it a second time.” Murray, who was officially appointed executive editor around the same time, was the main public face of Wednesday’s layoffs, leading some to wonder about publisher and CEO Will Lewis, who did not communicate with employees. Two years ago, Bezos personally appointed Lewis to turn the Post’s fortunes around, and employees say there’s been precious little to show for it. Murray defended Lewis in the interview: “Will has been working to create alternative sources of revenue” and “working to develop different kinds of AI and product technology. Some of that’s experimental. I can’t say it’s all worked, but also, having an experimental mindset is part of what we needed.” Murray also said Lewis has put the Post’s digital subscription business “in a far, far better place than it was, and we are having success on that front.” The Post shed hundreds of thousands of subscribers, though, after Bezos alienated loyal readers by nixing a planned editorial page endorsement of Kamala Harris in late 2024. Subsequent changes to the opinion section further raised concerns that Bezos was using the Post to curry favor with President Donald Trump in ways that could benefit Amazon and Blue Origin, two businesses Bezos famously founded. ‘We’re breaking a lot of scoops’ That perception, of course, is well out of the Post newsroom’s control. But Murray — as well as several other staffers — said people should take stock of what the publication is actually publishing on a daily basis. “Our job should be reporting on Trump aggressively without fear or favor, and that’s what we’re here to do,” Murray said. “We’re continuing to do that, and our brilliant staff is producing a lot of great work on that front, as you know, because we’re breaking a lot of scoops.” When asked whether the Post would continue to report on Amazon despite the fact that its Amazon beat reporter, Caroline O’Donovan, was laid off, Murray said yes. “Technology remains important to us,” he said, even though employees said more than half of the tech beat reporters were let go. “We had to make some very hard calls in different areas today,” Murray said. Some of the cuts, he indicated, were about short-term stabilization of the business, not about a permanent reduction in the Post’s ambitions. He sidestepped a question about whether he considered resigning rather than implementing the drastic reductions in force. “I want to have the chance to see if we can get the Post to a better place,” Murray said. “That’s important because the Post is an important institution that should survive and should thrive.”